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Hey boils and ghouls, it’s Friday, Day 5 of the 31 Days of Monsters Countdown here at Branded and I’m slipping back into The Real Ghostbusters territory. As a continuation of last Wednesday’s post, here’s Poso in all his pink Jabba the Hutt-like glory!

I read a bit of trivia on this character that says his name is an homage to Mario Puzo, the author of the Godfather novel (seeing as how Poso is desperately trying to become the spirit world’s own Godfather.) We also get another glimpse of Peter Venkman covered in the yellow Psychomagnotheric Slime (originally featured in the live action Ghostbusters sequel) in this cel. Unlike most of the Real Ghostbusters cels I’ve acquired, this one came attached (with double-sided tape) to a vintage production photocopy of a background, which leads me to believe that they may have used this cel in a reshoot or correction of some sort. Here’s what it looks like with the background intact (if you look close you can see the darker patches with the double-sided tape near the top of the scan…)

So come back each day this month for a new monster animation cel, and also, for more Halloween-y fun all month long, be sure to check out the Countdown to Halloween website for the complete list of sites participating in this year’s spooky fun. John Rozum has been working hard compiling the list, and it looks like there is a lot of awesome sites already signed up.

We’re jumping back over to the Filmation Ghostbusters cartoon for today’s 31 Days of Monsters post. This cel features Jake Kong Jr. facing off against a giant colossus, and it comes from the episode #13 (production # 68008) titled “A Friend in Need” from 1986. In the episode, Prime Evil’s boss, Big Evil, decides to take over the organizational duties at Hauntquarters and it’s up to Jake, Eddie and Tracy to team up with Prime Evil to take Big Evil down!

This cel is from a segment where Big Evil animates two huge statues laying around Hauntquaters, and sends them after the heroes. This giant metal colossus is pretty neat and reminds me a bit of the character design of Calibos from the original Clash of the Titans (p.s. world, I hate having to type “original” Clash of the Titans.) Like most of the Filmation Ghostbusters cels I was able to acquire, this one was accompanied by a vintage production photocopy of the background…

…though in this case the background isn’t accurate (though it was taped to the cels to keep them in place on it which is weird.) Checking in this episode I can see that the BG is a bit different (though both feature the Hauntquarters setting.)

Either way, I’m glad to have it and honestly, it’s pretty darn awesome even all by its lonesome!

I love the quality in the Filmation backgrounds, it was always an area where they never skimped…

So come back each day this month for a new monster animation cel, and also, for more Halloween-y fun all month long, be sure to check out the Countdown to Halloween website for the complete list of sites participating in this year’s spooky fun. John Rozum has been working hard compiling the list, and it looks like there is a lot of awesome sites already signed up.

Well, it’s Day 3, and I’m bouncing back to a couple of animation cels from The Real Ghostbusters featuring Peter Venkman, Luis Tully, and more importantly (to this countdown) Shifter, the greasy ex-stooge of gangster Boss Poso (who will be making an appearance shortly) from the episode Partners in Slime (which originally aired in season 5, 1989.)

This episode is fun because it’s one of the few in the series that calls back to events from the live action movies, in particular the Psychomagnotheric “mood” Slime from Ghostbusters II. In an effort to become the kingpin of the spectral underworld, Poso kidnaps both Janine and Luis and the only way to get them back is for Shifter to smuggle Peter into Ghost Town (in New Jersey of all places.) In order for the rouse to work, Peter has to be covered head to toe in the mood slime recovered after the battle with Vigo in GBII so that he can look ghostly and have limited spectral powers (like flight.) For some reason the slime is yellow in the cartoon instead of the soft bubblegum pink of the film.

I guess in a way, since the slime is almost sentient, today features two ghosts. I wanted to include this second cel from my collection so illustrate what Peter looks like fully covered in the episode. Also, you’ll notice a sneak peak at Friday’s Ghost, as we can see a rather large pink tail that belongs to a certain mobster spook…

Also, a quick note about the original pencil drawing that accompanied this second cel. As someone who loves cartoons, both the final episodes and all the behind the scenes work that goes into creating them, I can’t help but get a little bummed at how these elements were treated after the shows were finished being produced. Unfortunately, at the time (in the 80s) there wasn’t a huge demand for these cels and pieces of production artwork so it was common to just stack hundreds of them in boxes (cels interspersed with their corresponding production drawing or photocopy of the background artwork) and have them shipped off to an un-climate-controlled storage unit, left to rot for years. Luckily a lot of the cels and drawings survived, but many became fused together as the paint on the cels melted and re-dried to the drawings underneath. The below damage isn’t all that severe, but I do have some where the production drawing had to be destroyed in order to get a good scan of the cel. It always kills me when this happens. Anyway, off the soapbox I hop…

So come back each day this month for a new monster animation cel, and also, for more Halloween-y fun all month long, be sure to check out the Countdown to Halloween website for the complete list of sites participating in this year’s spooky fun. John Rozum has been working hard compiling the list, and it looks like there is a lot of awesome sites already signed up.

Alright, it’s day 2 of the 31 Days of Monsters Halloween Countdown, and since I started out with a cel from the Real Ghostbusters yesterday it’s time to switch things up and visit one from Filmation’s Ghostbusters! I like to start these cel countdowns with stuff that’s either not-so-scary, or with characters that might otherwise be considered one of the good guys. So, sort of like the Slimer cel, I was thinking of a character that would be sort of similar in the Filmation universe and the one that immediately sprung to mind was Ghost Buggy!

Certainly a “must” for any Ghostbusters outfit worth its salt is a sweet, yet temperamental ride, and Ghost Buggy fits that bit to a T (a haunted Model T that is.) This southern jalopy is not only sentient, but he can also transform into all sorts of vehicles from a car to a plane, a train, and can even travel through time! DeLorean, eat your heart out.

One of the aspects that I love about Ghost Buggy is that his face doubles at the logo for the team. Whereas the Real Ghostbusters cartoon writers and series developers did their best to work in the “No Ghosts” logo specter into the opening credits and interstitials, Ghost Buggy is actually a part of the team in the Filmation series. In a way GB is almost the ultimate 80s cartoon logo/faction symbol in this manner (think the Autobot, Decepticon, Cobra, and Thundercats logos.)

Anyway, I was lucky enough to score a copy of this cel with one of the vintage Filmation background photocopies, so for once we can put this cel in context of a scene. Though I’ve yet to get my hands on some of the original Filmation background paintings, these photocopies really go a long way to making me feel like I have a small piece of this cartoon in my collection.

So come back each day this month for a new monster animation cel, and also, for more Halloween-y fun all month long, be sure to check out the Countdown to Halloween website for the complete list of sites participating in this year’s spooky fun. John Rozum has been working hard compiling the list, and it looks like there is a lot of awesome sites already signed up.

Welcome back to another Branded in the 80s Countdown to Halloween! This year marks my 7th year celebrating the season here on the site and I’m really excited to be able to resurrect the 31 Days of 80s Monster animation cels. Back in 2009, and again in 2010 I had the opportunity to share a total of 62 Real Ghostbusters monster, ghost and creature animation cels from my personal collection. This year I was able to dig up 31 new pieces, though I’ve decided to shake things up a bit and alternate between both the Real Ghostbusters and Filmation Ghostbusters cartoons. Though TRG is arguably the more popular franchise, oddly enough Filmation GB animation cels are much harder to come by. It’s taken me years to be able to find some, though only enough cels so that I could share them during half of my Halloween-y countdown. So I thought it would be fun to bounce back and forth.

To get this started though, lets go back to the 31 Days of Monsters roots with this awesome cel featuring everyone’s favorite focused, non-terminal repeating phantasm, or a Class 5 full roaming vapor (who can eat a vending cart full of hotdogs like no one else), Slimer!

I absolutely fell in love with this cel when I stumbled across it. Not only is Slimer wearing a great Hawaiian shirt, but that demonic expression is great. I actually ended up donating this exact cel to the recent Strange Kids Club Issue 3 kickstarter to help raise the funds needs to get that comix anthology printed. So this guy hopefully has found a new loving home where it will be displayed proudly in a “Strange” collection. Be sure to keep tabs on the Strange Kids Club to get the details on when Issue three will be available for public purchase, as it’s going to be an issue full of fun comics and articles that you won’t want to miss.

As a bonus, here’s a scan of the accompanying pencil sketch that the base animation cel was produced from…

So come back each day this month for a new monster animation cel, and also, for more Halloween-y fun all month long, be sure to check out the Countdown to Halloween website for the complete list of sites participating in this year’s spooky fun. John Rozum has been working hard compiling the list, and it looks like there is a lot of awesome sites already signed up.

Well, we finally made it to monster number 31 and Halloween day! Today’s big-headed bad guy is probably one of the most feared villains in the Ghostbusters rogue’s gallery (coming in just a hair below Gozer), the Boogieman!

That’s right, the one and only feeder-of-fright, the bane to children and Egon’s everywhere, the big B. This is the ugly dude hiding under your bed at night. He’s the one casting creepy shadows on your wall when you think it’s just a tree. The Boogieman is also apparently the one using up all your mom’s lipstick and hairspray and then hiding the empty containers in your room so that you’ll get blamed!

Seriously though, along with the Sandman and Sam Hain, the Boogieman is probably one of the most evil foes the Ghostbusters have faced in their animated form. I can say that his huge head and little goat-like legs freaked me out as a kid…

I also think it’s kind of neat that the two cels I managed to score also come from both of his appearances int eh series. The wicked closeup up top comes from episode 81, The Boogieman is Back, and the cel of big-headed B coming out of the door is from episode 6, The Boogieman Cometh…

I was so overjoyed to get a hold of these two cels this past year as this guy is one of my all time favorite monsters from the series. The only hole in my collection right now is Sam Hain, but then as I came to discover when I finally scored a set of series one Garbage Pail Kids, completing a collection can be quite the downer. I think I’ll be okay looking out for that last Real Ghostbusters cel for awhile…

So that does it for another Halloween season here at Branded in the 80s. It was my fifth year celebrating, and the second great year for the Countdown to Halloween hub site. Once again, like in most years past I’m about ready to go into hibernation, but then again I have the first Up! Fair coming up in 19 short days. I think I need a nap…

If you’d like to read more Halloween-y goodness, you can also click on the Halloween Archive link to the left (the banner with King Kong), as well as heading on over to the Countdown to Halloween to check out lists of a bunch of other sites participating in this year’s Halloween blogging event.

For all of those joining me for the first time, welcome to the Return of the 31 Days of Monsters Halloween countdown here at Branded in the 80s! I had a blast last year, so again I’m counting down 31 of my favorite monsters from the Real Ghostbusters cartoon. All of these monsters come straight from my vintage animation cel collection, and my wife and I tried our best to put them in a not-so-scary to really-freaking-creepy kind of order with the creepiest falling on All Hallows Eve.

We’re almost there folks. All Hallows Eve eve, or some such junk. It’s been a fun counting down these monsters for a second year and I wish I had more cels to stretch this out for a third year, but I guess I’ll just have to come up with something else to write about. Anyway, today’s penultimate monster is probably one of the better villains from the waning days of the Real Ghostbusters cartoon. By this time it was already re-branded Slimer and the Real Ghostbusters, and it was in store for a truly disappointing end. But before we got there we got a chance to sneak a peek at this Toyland demon from episode 126, Busters in Toyland…

Pretty gnarly looking, right? This demon was actually much more Gremlin-like in appearance (see the screen shot below). The crux of the episode revolves around Louis Tulley’s spoiled nephew who seems to have all toys in existence. Louis, trying to wow him on his birthday ends up buying some spectrally possessed action figures (one of which I shared earlier in the month), which kidnap his nephew and steal him away to Toyland. There a demon ruler tricks the boy into accepting the mantle of ruler so that he can be free and leave the realm. A fter the switch of power he reveals his true form, the crazy spiked demon wyrm you see above…

I was really happy to get my hands on this cel because it features Louis, one of the last “main” characters I wanted to have from the show.

Well, one last time I’ll make the call to come back tomorrow for another Real Ghostbusters monster animation cel as I complete the countdown towards my favorite character from the show!

For all of those joining me for the first time, welcome to the Return of the 31 Days of Monsters Halloween countdown here at Branded in the 80s! I had a blast last year, so again I’m counting down 31 of my favorite monsters from the Real Ghostbusters cartoon. All of these monsters come straight from my vintage animation cel collection, and my wife and I tried our best to put them in a not-so-scary to really-freaking-creepy kind of order with the creepiest falling on All Hallows Eve.

Today’s spooks are so much ghosts as they are physical manifestations based on dreams that are under the control of one of the Ghostbuster’s coolest villains, the Sandman! These guys hail from episode 7, Mr. Sandman, Dream Me a Dream…

I have to admit that I’m a sucker for skull-related iconography. It has to be one of the basic building blocks of a human’s fear, mixing both the finality of death (how else are you going to see a real skull) and the mysterious unknown inside each and every one of us. So whenever I stumble upon something creepy, imposing and with a cool skull thrown in for good measure, I quite easily fall in love…

I think I also really dug these two because they remind me of two similar villains from my childhood, General Kael (from the much underappreciated Willow) and Warduke (from the Dungeons and Dragons Cartoon and toy line)…

Come back tomorrow for another Real Ghostbusters monster animation cel as I count down towards one of my favorite on Halloween day!

For all of those joining me for the first time, welcome to the Return of the 31 Days of Monsters Halloween countdown here at Branded in the 80s! I had a blast last year, so again I’m counting down 31 of my favorite monsters from the Real Ghostbusters cartoon. All of these monsters come straight from my vintage animation cel collection, and my wife and I tried our best to put them in a not-so-scary to really-freaking-creepy kind of order with the creepiest falling on All Hallows Eve.

Today is all about the fan-favorite little green spud, Slimer! Whereas last year I shared a cel of a ghost that had a very striking resemblance to Slimer, and was in fact sort of the Earth 2 evil version of the little guy, today it’s really just the full on evil version of Slimer!

After feeling brushed off and ignored by the guys, Slimer is unfortunately possessed by a gaseous leak from a faulty pipe on the containment unit. It causes the little guy to go all Jekyll and Hyde during the episode…

I really love the amped-up evil Slimer character design, especially his scary mouth full of shark-like teeth. The horns don’t hurt either…

It’s also funny in the episode, because even though this version of Slimer is evil and bent on destruction, he still takes the time to continuously “slime” Peter! There’s also a fun daydream sequence where Slimer has to come and save the gang from another ghost…

Come back tomorrow for another Real Ghostbusters monster animation cel as I count down towards one of my favorite on Halloween day!

For all of those joining me for the first time, welcome to the Return of the 31 Days of Monsters Halloween countdown here at Branded in the 80s! I had a blast last year, so again I’m counting down 31 of my favorite monsters from the Real Ghostbusters cartoon. All of these monsters come straight from my vintage animation cel collection, and my wife and I tried our best to put them in a not-so-scary to really-freaking-creepy kind of order with the creepiest falling on All Hallows Eve.

Today’s ghost is only half as scary as he appears, and I’m pretty sure no chains, locks, or boxes could hold him. This creepily floating harpy of a man is actually the ghost of the great Harry Houdini!

I hadn’t seen this episode when I picked up the cel originally, but when I laid eyes on it I couldn’t help but be seriously creeped out. There’s just something unsettling about a crazy looking dude in an unbound-straight jacket that also appears to be screaming bloody murder. This is the kind of ghost I fear bumping into one day. I’d never be so lucky to get a calm, quiet free-roaming repeater. No I’d get a Library Ghost (from the 1st Ghostbusters flick) or something…

Anyway, in this episode, #63 the Cabinet of Calamari, the Ghostbusters are given free passes to a magic show in the hopes that they’ll be able to take care of a pesky ghost that’s been haunting the current act. Suspicions of foul play start to run as the guys are attacked by animated hand saws and swords (Winston sure picked a horrible hiding spot from the swords!)

After some investigation, the gang realizes that the ghost they’ve been hired to bust is actually Harry Houdini who is just trying to get his secrets and diary back from the evil Calamari…

Come back tomorrow for another Real Ghostbusters monster animation cel as I count down towards one of my favorite on Halloween day!